In developed countries today many women receive educations and earn salaries that are on a par with those of men. The fact that women are no longer socially or economically dependent on men has radically altered young people’s lifestyles. A woman can now choose to remain single, marrying only when a man adds value to her life or when she desires to have children within such a framework.
This is creating big changes throughout the developed world. The replacement rate--the reproduction rate that keeps a population stable--for developed countries is 2.1, yet nearly half the world’s population has birth rates lower than that. Full story
